"Looking" is the follow-up movie version of the first two TV series. For the reason HBO axed the show, director Andrew Haigh made the film as an answer to the story.
The time span of the film is very short, which is similar to Hagrid's other famous work "Weekend". The latter also described the whole process of a pair of gay lovers from acquaintance to falling in love within 48 hours, which resonated with many gay groups and was greatly appreciated. The male lead won the 2011 British Independent Film Awards for Best Promising Newcomer, and the film won the Best Producer Achievement Award. Hagrid is good at using down-to-earth description techniques and perspectives to interpret real life and resonate with small groups of people. This is his trump card to get to where he is today.
The story takes place in San Francisco, the city with the highest gay ratio in the United States, surpassing the second place by nearly 1 percentage point. The film version begins immediately after the end of the second season. Nine months after breaking up with Kevin, Patrick returned to San Francisco from Denver for the weekend to attend his friend Augustin's wedding and bravely end the chapter with his past. The returned P is less timid, which shows his so-called growth. The film's focus on the short 48 hours, ending Looking all the story, this approach - especially when the audience realizes that this is the final version of the whole series - gives Hagrid's film a faster pace and stronger explosive power. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying how good this approach is, but the rhythm is obviously better than the slow cooking of a pot of chicken soup.)
Due to time constraints, the movie version did not include several protagonists like the TV series. The character of P is fully presented, but only the role of P is more inked. The whole plot is a weekend in his eyes, taking the audience by his side for a moment.
P is more mature in the movie - at least better at disguising childishness, instead of googling "foreskin" like in the first season (it's called a sweat to me). Here, the movie inserts a clever design, showing P's view on sex through P's encounter with a bar boy for a one-night stand, and at the same time showing P's acceptance of the age and generation gap with the boy, he is more aware of himself, tolerant of his own identity and The way of life echoes his increasingly mature psychological changes.
Jonathan Groff's perfect acting skills convey that everything in reality is too limited for P, making P take A's wedding as the beginning of a new chapter in his life.
The meeting between P and K is painful, which is different from that P who enjoys a one-night stand. Russell Tovey played K's character perfectly, giving him a soul and a soft side -- even if he was seen as an emotionless sex machine at the end of last season. The film also gives Groff the opportunity to show P's inner vulnerability and selfish exposure.
When Looking first came out, it was seen as a pioneer in the gay genre, as HBO had never brought a gay movie to the screen. Looking represents a real voice of gay life, which is more like a noble responsibility that Looking cannot escape. From this point of view, if Looking didn't show the life of a real comrade at the beginning, it might be the director's mistake, the screenwriter's mistake, and the actor's mistake.
As TV aired, it was increasingly supported by LGBTQ groups. Given that Amazon and Netflix also have gay-themed TV series, this somewhat relieves the pressure on Looking and allows the production team to focus more on the "quality" of the film. (Here I have to mention another "ulterior motive" of HBO. The third Look was adapted into a movie, which means that it may be nominated for the next Emmy's Best TV Movie Award.)
But that doesn't mean the movie is perfect . The relationship between Dom and Doris characters is not fully utilized to serve the theme, and Richie's boyfriend Brady is more like a picky clown, and once he finds something between R and P, he starts to spill. Rather than Augustin's preachy view of marriage and the way an older gay (Dom) pursues love, I'd rather focus on P's life.
Under the gentle care of director Haigh, this beautiful story conveys the simple truth that movies don't exist to show how different and rare gay love is, but to reflect a man's life experiences, friends, lovers, exes How to grasp, nourish, and even destroy love.
At the end of the movie, the director left plenty of room for the audience to imagine P's future life, and let the audience add his own ending for him. Maybe this is the best way to look.
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